In my discussion of why the four Gospels were given their names, I hypothesized that it was because an edition of the four was produced in Rome in the mid second-century, and that this edition named the Gospels as “according to Matthew” “according to Mark” “according to Luke” and “according to John.” The trickiest name to account for is Mark’s. Here I suggested that the editor of this Gospel edition wanted the readers to understand that this Gospel presented the views of Peter; but he did not call the Gospel of the Gospel according to Peter because such a Gospel was already known to exist. This naturally led several of my readers to pose an important question. Here is how one reader worded it:
QUESTION: If this hypothetical edition of the four gospels in Rome did not attribute ‘Mark’s gospel to Peter because the gospel of Peter was already known at that time, why did this edition of four gospels also not include the gospel of Peter?
RESPONSE: Ah, that was a part I forgot to mention! If my hypothesis is right, the reasons for not including this other Gospel of Peter among the church’s Gospels would be (a) it was not as widely accepted in proto-orthodox circles and (b) that was because it was thought to present a theologically dubious understanding of Jesus. To explain all that, I need to give more information on the Gospel of Peter – at least the one that is now (partially) known. To do that I will reproduce the “Introduction” to the Gospel that I wrote for the the new translation and edition of the early Christian Gospels, produced by my colleague Zlatko Plese and me, published this past year. It’s a relatively long introduction so I’ll spread this over three posts.
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The third-century Origen is the first patristic author to mention a Gospel allegedly written by Jesus’ disciple Simon Peter. Origen indicates that the book may have spoken of Jesus’ “brothers” as sons of Joseph from a previous marriage (Commentary on Matthew 10.17). It is not clear that Origen had actually read the book: nothing that we now know indicates that any such story was in it, and Origen also states that the information may instead have come from a “book of James”–presumably a reference to what is now called the Proto-Gospel of James, a book that does identify Jesus’ brothers in this way. The next church father to mention a Gospel of Peter is the fourth-century “father of church history,” Eusebius, who twice numbers the book among writings not accepted by the church as Scripture (Church History, 3. 3. 2; 3. 25. 6). On one other occasion, Eusebius discusses the book at some length, in order to show why it had been excluded from consideration from the canon.
The story involves …
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It seems really odd that a bishop of Antioch, one of the churches earliest strongholds, would hear about a “new” gospel, not just any gospel, but one written by a disciple(!) and not even look at it. This might have happened in the first century when the church was just starting to grow, but almost 200 years after Jesus was crucified? Sounds spurious to me.
Ignatius was writing about 30-40 years after the Gospels were written. My sense is that he knew of a couple of them and had indeed read them.
I was talking about Serapion. You said:
“Upon arriving in Rhossus he learned that for their worship services the Christians there used a Gospel allegedly written by Peter. At first Serapion sanctioned the use of the book, sight unseen…”
My disbelief stems from Serapion actually being in the village where this congregation has a Gospel he’s never seen before and he didn’t take the time to look at it. Not just any gospel, but one written by one of the 12 (and one of the 3 most important disciples at that)! That seems almost too incredible to believe. He could have held the words of Peter in his hands and he chose not to (ok, maybe it wasn’t a choice not to, but we aren’t told that).
I anticipated this answer. So the hypothetical proto-Orthodox editor of the four gospels did not in fact consider the gospel of Peter to be genuinely written by Peter. Rather than claim the gospel of ‘Mark’ was the real gospel by Peter, he did the next best thing and claimed merely that it was written by a close associate of Peter. Interesting that the hypothetical proto-Orthodox editor would be skeptical of a more outlandish claim and relatively modest in his own claims. Almost renews my faith in hypothetical proto-Orthodoxy.
To me the more surprising fact here is not that the gospel of Peter was not retained, but that the gospel of Mark was. Practically all of it was reproduced and ‘improved’ upon by the gospel of Matthew, a purported apostle. There must have been a constituency for the gospel of Mark such that it could not be left out altogether. It had been in use longer and was presumably its use was more widespread geographically. Did it attain this position merely because it was the first of its kind, a truly original creation being preserved for its own merrits without any claim to an authoritative author? This too seems to be a feather in the cap of proto-Orthodoxy.
What gives? I thought the proto-Orthodox were supposed to be the bad guys?
I don’t know if this hypothetical author considered the book to be by Peter or not. His later contemporary Serapion at first did, as did the only Christians that we know for sure used it, in the Syrian village of Rhosus. There is nothing *particularly* outlandish about the claim of the Gospel to be written by Peter — no more outlandish than the claim that Peter wrote 2 Peter (which he certainly did not, as some proto-orthodox recognized).
It is an outlandish claim if in fact it is not true.
If the early church thought the gospel of Peter was heretical or something like that. Why would they downplay their own gospel by attributing it to Mark if they could just attribute it to Peter and say that the heretical one is a farce?
In other words:
If they believed their own gospel to be written by Peter and the gospel of Peter to be heretical, why would they downplay their own authority for something they thought was a farce?
It’s a great question. One answer may be that they knew that Peter could not write (Acts 4:13). Another is that they knew about the heretical one and did not want to tarnish this orthodox one by associating it with the heretical one in people’s minds. THere are probalby other good answers out there! THe standard answer, of course, is that the book really was written by Mark! But I think there are reasons for doubting that….
I think this could be seen as slight evidence in favour of Markan authorship then. However do you think that if we consider all factors (including the fact that it was attributed to Mark, not Peter) we come to the conclusion that Mark probably did not write or to the conclusion that he could have plausibly written it (since the tradition is strong or something)?
I think we have to look at other evidence to determine whether a companion of Peter named Mark wrote the Gospel assigned to him. For example, was he John Mark mentioned in Acts? If so, what would be the chances that someone like that was highly literate, and was trained in composition in Greek? ANd that he would be writing a text around the year 70? etc.
Hi Bart, this is irrelevant to the post but has to do with Peter. Do you think that Peter ever went to Rome? Would it matter if he did or didn’t?
I don’t really know. I suppose it would matter a great deal to the Catholic Church.
I was also listening to your discussion with Tim McGrew on the Unbelievable radio show. I remember you saying that you thought Justin Martyr was referring to the Gospel of Peter when he mentioned Peter’s memoirs. I hope I’m not misremembering but if it is something you said, I was curious to know why you think he’s referring to the gospel of Peter rather than Mark.
Mainly because he says it is the Memoirs of “Peter” and doesn’t mention the Gospel of Mark. Moreover, what he alludes to several traditions that are found in Peter but not in Mark. There’s some fine scholarship on this, but unfortunately it’s in German.